Regina Lenoir

Math Department

Have two books that I have enjoyed:

The Wedding by Dorothy West, and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

The Wedding is a story of an affluent black family living in Martha's Vineyard during the 1950's. It chronicles the upcoming interracial wedding of the youngest daughter, and her family's struggle to accept this. Amidst her love for this white jazz musician, she is confused as a soon-to-be divorced, "socially acceptable" black suitor promises her the world. She is torn between her blue-blood family's wishes for her to marry "up", or follow her heart and be with her musician.

The Joy Luck Club follows four American women and their old-world mothers. This story intertwines the lives of the mothers as they come of age in their mother-land of China . It details the internal struggles that the modern day daughters bear as they try to understand and respect their mothers' traditions and superstitions, while creating their own identities and place in the world.

Both of these novels were made into movies long after I first read them. Neither movie did the stories justice. Both of these stories are intriguing and thought-provoking reading experiences.